This is Static's third full-length album for City Centre Offices. Hanno Leichtmann has been a pivotal musician in Berlin's burgeoning scene for a number of years -- his list of collaborators, co-conspirators and featured guests ranges from members of To Rococo Rot and Tarwater through to Lali Puna and, most recently, Pole and Jan Jelinek with whom Hanno has been recording new albums and preparing to tour. For his own material Hanno has always managed to inject electronic construction with an element of popular appeal, from the metamorphosis of "track" into more recognizable "songs," or with his use of hooks and central melody lines to capture the imagination of an audience not necessarily fluent in the language of disembodied whirrs, clicks and fractured cuts. For this album Hanno Leichtmann met with longtime collaborators and admired musicians Christof Kurzmann and Martin Siewert, whose contributions on this release form the central identity of this excellent album. Long forgotten melodies are realized through samples of neglected, dusty classical records woven into layers of guitar strums played by Martin Siewert and decorated with Kurzmann's flamboyantly odd vocal delivery. Add to this piquant blend a pop song Hanno wrote together with Tarwater/To Rococo Rot's Ronald Lippok ("Return of She") and Leichtmann's intended theme is realized perfectly -- pop music derived by uncompromisingly innovative means. As if to reiterate the popular fascination at the heart of the proceedings, as well as the album title's preoccupation with memories, Hanno recorded his first-ever cover version -- a daring, beautiful take on The Assembly's '80s hit "Never Never." Talk about memories, indeed.
